Newly recruited Houthi fighters join a gathering in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2017 [File: Mohammed Huwais/AFP]The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has extended an arms embargo to all Houthi rebels, as the Yemeni group faces increased international pressure after a string of recent attacks on Gulf countries.
Monday’s resolution, proposed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and adopted with 11 votes in favour and four abstentions, extends an embargo that until now targeted some Houthi leaders to the entire rebel group.
The Emirati mission to the UN welcomed the result of the vote, saying the resolution would “curtail the military capabilities of the Houthis & push toward stopping their escalation in Yemen & the region”.
The move comes days after United States President Joe Biden’s administration issued new sanctions against a network that it accused of transferring tens of millions of dollars to the Houthis – and amid a push by the Emirati government for countries to take a tougher stance against the rebels.
Dubai: A thief who stole a mobile phone was caught as the owner of the phone called him when he happened to have been stopped by a policeman in Dubai over a random check.
The thief was confused when the policeman stopped him in Al Quoz as the owner of the phone kept ringing on his number.
According to the Dubai Court of First Instance, the policeman asked the thief to answer the calls and put the phone on speaker.
The thief was arrested as the policeman heard the phone owner claiming it is his phone and that it was stolen.
The victim said in records that he was walking home with a friend when a group of people attacked them with a knife.
“My friend injured his finger and shoulder and I lost my mobile phone and cash of Dh10,000,” said the victim in records.
The victim was transferred to the hospital for treatment while policemen were dispatched to the area to look for the attackers.
One of them said that he stopped the defendant because he was walking suspiciously and his phone was ringing many times.
“I asked him to answer the call and put the phone on speaker. The victim spoke and said it is his phone,” said the policeman.
Jamie Snedden was swept into Cook Inlet, above. Photograph: Mark Thiessen/AP
An Alaska man walking on a shoreline wound up clinging to a chunk of ice for more than 30 minutes in frigid water when the shoreline ice broke loose and carried him out into Cook Inlet.
Jamie Snedden, 45, of Homer, was rescued on Saturday near the community of Anchor Point on the Kenai Peninsula. He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia. He was expected to fully recover, Alaska wildlife troopers said.
Snedden “was reported to have been walking along the shoreline on the ice when it broke free and drifted into Cook Inlet with the outgoing current”, a troopers spokesman, Tim DeSpain, said in an email to the Associated Press on Monday.
“The decision to buy this land was made by people who help manage my money so that we get a good return so that the Foundation can buy more vaccines,” Gates said on Trevor Noah’s podcast in November 2023. “And they saw that if we could invest in land and (improve) the productivity of that land, that it would have a good return.”
But according to Latypova and Rose, the purchases are about control.
“I see this as his move to own the highly productive land where he can also control the state government via major investments into the ‘biotech’ sector — which is always considered attractive by the government due to being considered a high value-added, ‘clean’ generator of jobs, tax revenue and attracting positive PR for the politicians,” Latypova said.
“He wants to own the land and control the government of that state,” Latypova added, saying this is part of a process to “capture and control all major levers to establish private control over a territory.”
She said this includes exerting influence over universities, which “will do whatever ‘science’ you order for money.”
Along similar lines, Rose said that “the necessary ingredient to ensure control of society … is the control of the food and water supply.”
Achieving such control over humans is difficult, Rose said, due to free will, but a possible way to overcome this “‘imposition’ … would be to tag us and trace us, and impose punishment for ‘choosing to go out of step.’”
“Those punishments might include withholding of food and water. There are some among us who believe that humans should be tagged, as some animals are.”
Even at current levels, human actions in heating the climate are causing dangerous and widespread disruption, threatening devastation to swathes of the natural world and rendering many areas unliveable, according to the landmark report published on Monday.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-chair of working group 2 of the IPCC. “Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”
Droughts, floods, heatwaves
In what some scientists termed “the bleakest warning yet”, the summary report from the global authority on climate science says droughts, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather are accelerating and wreaking increasing damage.
On February 26, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a telephone conversation with the President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The President of Uzbekistan warmly congratulated the Leader of Turkey on his birthday, sincerely wishing him good health, well-being and great success, as well as peace and prosperity to the friendly people of Turkey.
The Presidents considered the current issues on the bilateral agenda.
The stable and dynamic development of multifaceted cooperation between Uzbekistan and Turkey was noted with satisfaction.
Intensive contacts continue at different levels, and mutual trade indicators are growing. The scale of cooperation between the leading regions and enterprises of the two countries is enhancing, and several large investment and infrastructure projects are being jointly implemented. Important cultural and humanitarian programs are being carried out.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu passed a small group of demonstrators as she departed her home in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston in January. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu proposed a city ordinance Monday that limits the times you can protest outside of someone’s private residence to 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Reactions to the measure were swift, with some calling it an abridgement of free speech.
But in an interview with WBUR Monday afternoon, Wu defended the ordinance, saying it limits the forms of protest that border on harassment, and that it protects neighbors of public figures who can also bear the brunt of protests at private residences despite having nothing to do with the public figure.
Wu began by saying she values protecting the right to free speech, the right to protest, and the way those things help hold leaders accountable. But at the same time, she said, people in the U.S. are very divided right now, and there is currently a rise in hateful rhetoric.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, Ukraine, major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, speaks to reporters at the Vatican Jan. 26, 2018. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
ROME (CNS) — As Russian troops approached Ukraine’s capital, Pope Francis phoned the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, offering his encouragement and promising, “I will do everything I can” to help.
The pope called Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, major archbishop of the Eastern-rite church, late in the afternoon Feb. 25, according to the Ukrainian Catholic Church’s press office in Rome.
Earlier in the day, breaking usual diplomatic practice, Pope Francis had left the Vatican and gone to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See “to express his concern for the war,” said Matteo Bruni, the head of the Vatican press office.
Archbishop Shevchuk’s office said that, during the phone call, Pope Francis asked him about the situation in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine on the second full day of the Russian attack. According to multiple news reports, Russian troops were advancing on the capital, Kyiv, where the archbishop has remained.
Pope Francis asked about the bishops and priests in the areas of heaviest fighting, the Ukrainian Catholic press office said. And he thanked the church for its closeness to the people.
“In particular, the pope praised the decision to remain with the people and to be at the service of the neediest,” including by opening the basement of Resurrection Cathedral in Kyiv as a bomb shelter, which already was being used by dozens of people, including families with children.
Negotiations takes place with the Minister of Investment of Saudi Arabia Khalid al-Falih
Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — On 27 February, negotiations were held in the videoconferencing format between the Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan Sardor Umurzakov and Minister of Investments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Khalid al-Falih.
During the meeting, topical issues of bilateral investment and trade and economic cooperation, as well as the implementation of the agreements reached following the visit of the government delegation of the Republic of Uzbekistan to Saudi Arabia, held in May last year, were substantively considered.
Particular attention was paid to the opportunities for attracting additional Saudi investment in the energy sector and the development of energy infrastructure. A special role in this direction was noted for the Saudi company ACWA POWER, which is already implementing projects in Uzbekistan totaling about US$3 billion.
The Saudi side expressed its readiness for close cooperation in attracting investments for the implementation of additional projects in the fields of agriculture, chemistry and petrochemistry, as well as metallurgy in Uzbekistan.
An agreement was reached to organize a meeting of the IGC this year, a joint meeting of the Business Council between the business circles of both countries, as well as an exhibition of Uzbek domestic products “Made in Uzbekistan” in the cities of Riyadh and Jeddah.
A girl poses for a photo in the living room at her orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct. 10, 2021. Researchers estimate that 5.2 million children have been orphaned during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the number of orphaned children jumped 90% during delta variant surge. (CNS photo/Jorge Silva, Reuters)
CLEVELAND (CNS) — An estimated 5.2 million children in 21 countries, including the United States, lost at least one parent, a custodial grandparent or a primary caregiver to COVID-19 during the first 20 months of the pandemic, social researchers and child well-being advocates said in a new study.
Notably, the researchers estimated that the number of children orphaned because of the pandemic nearly doubled during the six-month period ending Oct. 31, 2021, a period corresponding largely with the surge in the delta variant of the coronavirus.
The total number of orphaned children during the study period parallels the roughly 5 million COVID-19-caused deaths during the same time frame, the study said.
“This finding means that, globally, for every one reported COVID-19 death, at least one child experienced orphanhood or caregiver death,” the researchers concluded.
The study was published online Feb. 24 by the British medical journal The Lancet.
The study defined orphanhood as the death of one or both parents, one or both custodial grandparents, or a primary caregiver.
Catholic Relief Services representatives described the estimates as “eye-opening” and agreed with the researchers’ conclusion that “an evidence-based emergency response is becoming increasingly urgent” to meet the challenges faced by children pushed into orphanhood by the pandemic.
Persecution Live 